What is Earth Fare?

[Coupon-Crazy]

Earth Fare's History

Earth Fare’s roots go back to 1975 when Roger Derrough set up shop as “Dinner for the Earth,” the first natural food store in Asheville, North Carolina. For five years the store operated out of a tiny store front before relocating to downtown Asheville in a much larger space on Broadway Avenue and I-240. The store grew and thrived for an additional 14 years at this location.
Changing names to “Earth Fare” in October of 1993, the company decided to join the growing movement to push natural and organic foods to the forefront of the American culinary experience. Earth Fare relocated the following year to the Westgate Shopping Center in a full-service supermarket format where it remains to this day.
A year later, Earth Fare won the “Best New Store of the Year” award from Health Foods Business Magazine and was featured on the front cover of the magazine’s July issue. Earth Fare’s success in Asheville encouraged the store to expand, and in 1997, it opened its second location in the large and vital food community of Charleston, South Carolina.
In 1998, Michael Cianciarulo joined Earth Fare as CEO and furthered Earth Fare’s growth, pioneering the natural food supermarket throughout the Southeast. Since Michael’s arrival, stores have been opened in Greenville, Columbia, and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Greensboro, Boone, Charlotte, Chapel Hill and Raleigh, North Carolina, Athens, Georgia, and Knoxville, Tennessee.
Today Earth Fare continues as a leader in the grocery industry, providing the best tasting local, natural and organic foods available without compromising its commitment to natural integrity. One of the first supermarket chains to completely eliminate added trans fats in the form of partially hydrogenated oils from its foods, Earth Fare continues to set the pace for natural retailing by not selling sucralose (the sweetener now known as Splenda) and by becoming the first supermarket to eliminate High Fructose Corn Syrup from its shelves.
Each year, Earth Fare receives numerous local "Best of" awards from the communities it serves, and it was recognized on a national level when it received the coveted Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Southeastern United States in 2005.

Mission & Values

Earth Fare brings you the best tasting, most naturally produced foods and products available.
We believe in supporting a healthy environment—both in the purchasing choices that we make and in the quality of our interactions with customers and the communities in which we live.
We support the empowerment, development and wellness of our customers and staff by operating a successful business focused on education, fair trade, organic and local foods, and other healthy choices for the environment and ourselves.
We strive to delight & inspire our customers, going out of our way to make them as enlivened by their experience with us as they are when consuming the great tasting, all natural foods we sell.

Earth Fare

[jujubee]

This sounds like an awesome store. I'm planning a trip to Raleigh in December, and I hope I'm close enough to one to check it out!